A rollercoaster of extremes (interview)

Hotel Modern theatre company as created its own, unique theatrical language with performances such as City Now, The Great War and Lear’s Eye. The premiere of their eighth production, The Man with Five Fingers, takes place this month. In addition to acting and mime, ‘live animations’ play an important role in the performances of this Rotterdam-based company. Everyday objects are given a new countenance and projected lifesize, causing astonishment and hilarity. In this way actors and theatre makers Pauline Kalker and Arlène Hoornweg, and visual artist Herman Helle create an entirely personal and unique surreal world.

Black revue
These elements are once again in evidence in the black revue The Man with Five Fingers. Following their adaptation of Shakespeare’s King lear in 2003, they wrote a number of stories connected only by the common theme of death. Arlène Hoornweg:”It was quite a struggle to make Shakespeare our own – and that’s the reason we started working with our own imagination again.” Pauline Kalker:”Originally there was no theme, we just wanted to be able to go in any direction we wanted to. At quite an early stage in the process we asked the American playwright Tod Davies to work on our ideas. It was only then that we realised death played an important role in all the stories. It’s become a sort of rollercoaster of extremes: extremely tragic, extremely hilarious, extremely bizarre, and so on.

Twin towers
One of the stories Kalker tells in The Man with Five Fingers is the authentic account of her grandfather who died in Auschwitz and her grandmother who made a spectacular escape from the same camp at the same time. Hoornweg:”Just as a story it is very beautiful. A family broken apart, and the various paths we then follow, in an almost documentary fashion.” Kalker:”In a way I finally get to meet my grandfather by performing this.” Another story is based on a newspaper article describing the death of a woman sunbathing on a packed beach. Het body is only discovered when the beach empties as evening approaches. Hoornweg:”It’s so tragic and so beautiful at the same time: among all that life and the hustle and bustle of the beach there’s a dead person just lying there.” The events of 9/11 also get their turn in the spotlight. Kalker:”When Herman saw those images he immediately thought ‘I could make a beautiful immitation of that’. You could call this an occupational disability. In the animation he observes the drama from the perspective of both the terrorists in the cockpit and the people in the Twin Towers.”

Dadaist
Composer and Rotterdammer Arthur Sauer has worked for Hotel Modern before. In The Man with Five Fingers he is present on stage throughout, providing live music and sound effects. Sauer:”What appeals to me about Hotel Modern is the combination of hi-tech and lo-tech and the group’s Dadaist bent. The same elements are present in my music too. Kalker:”We are very playful but also very intense when it comes to the emotions we want to evoke. That’s how the audience is supposed to experience it, and humour can be a way to achieve that. Arthur’s not afraid of looking into the abyss. That’s way we like to work with him.”

October 2004